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Author: Allison Miller

Columns

History and You
September 30, 2016
Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History sidles up to listeners with the faux-charming tagline “Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.” This plea-cum-disclaimer is an act of charity, perhaps, for a school subject supposedly demanding rote ...

The Pseudo Bowl of Politics
September 29, 2016
Like most revered American public traditions, presidential debates are jury-rigged miasmas. True, Monday’s feverishly hyped Hofstra University rhetorical slugfest between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Lord of Destruction Donald Trump didn’t ...

Daily Bafflements
September 26, 2016
• The video footage of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott raises, yet again, the question of how the law keeps protecting cops who panic. Natasha Vargas-Cooper wrote about it earlier this year. • “By galloping sideways, the cat ...

Bye Bye, Blackbird
September 26, 2016
During his long life, it was said that Gore Vidal’s literary and cultural appeal stemmed from one singular feat: that he pisses from a very great height. Vidal’s rarefied, mingent corpus was disorienting and too snobbish for some, but for grown-ups, it’s a ...

Daily Bafflements
September 23, 2016
• Over at Columbia Journalism Review, Shelley Hepworth dives into the sticky situation surrounding eyewitness video. In an era where citizens with cellphones often have the first—and best—footage of news events, what is the responsibility of journalists and ...

When Goo-Goos Attack
September 23, 2016
One of the less edifying displays in this election—there are many—is the level of left-liberal and radical critique of Hillary Clinton. Whether you advocate a vote for Clinton, Stein, or nobody, the discussions of Clinton need more ideological heft than is often ...

Lies of the Times
September 22, 2016
Sit up and take notice, monitors of plain speech in our elite journalistic discourse: the New York Times has at long last elected to call a lie a lie, at least as far as Donald Trump is concerned. What prompted this long-overdue linguistic breakthrough was the barking, bigoted ...

Token-Hunters: Your Friendship Is Not a Gift
September 21, 2016
“Say it to my face” may sound righteous and brave, but the smug boors who shout that slogan the loudest are often the ones least prepared to listen. If you try to tell this person how her tokenism makes you feel, it could mean a lot of work for you. Do you really have time ...

Daily Bafflements
September 19, 2016
• “I explain to her that I haven’t called ahead for credentials, but that I just plan on quietly standing with the press corps, jotting down ridiculous things I see and maybe firing off some incredulous low-quality pics on Twitter.” (Thanks, ...

Daily Bafflements
September 16, 2016
• Our friends at MuckRock will fund your pet research project on Palantir with their Thiel Fellowship, although we’re a bit skeptical that the program only lasts one year—we suspect the Paypal founder’s misdeeds and covert operations from intelligence ...

Innovator-In-Chief
September 16, 2016
Earlier this summer, President Obama told Bloomberg Businessweek that he was eyeing Silicon Valley for his post-presidential life: he wanted to become a venture capitalist. And as the summer wound down into Labor Day weekend, his efforts to transform his lame-duck term into a ...